Colorimetric or fluorescent molecular sensors triggered by several input signals are applied as molecular computation and analytical devices. Such sensors can imitate the function of electronic logic gates, digital circuits; arithmetic and security systems, as well as be applied in multiplexed cellular imaging, in clever chemosensing, and as molecular tags. Such sensors require a receptor-per-target, which significantly limits their multiplicity.
In order to obtain multi-analyte detection using fluorescent or colorimetric molecular sensors cross-responsive arrays are required similar to the mammalian olfactory system. An artificial nose, typically includes two components, an array of chemical sensors and a pattern-recognizer. The array may mimic the operation of the olfactory neural system and can identify complex vapors and aromas as well as analyze disease biomarkers. State-of-the-art developments in supramolecular analytical chemistry afforded colorimetric and fluorescent molecular sensor arrays that can operate in biochemical solutions. Developing methods for verifying drug content at a point-of-care is receiving growing international attention. Unlike any other class of biosensors, such arrays can detect, identify, and discriminate among specific mixtures containing possibly hundreds of different chemical species or between structurally similar biomolecules including phosphates, steroids, saccharides, nucleotide phosphates, peptides, and proteins in a high-throughput manner.
For example, macrolides, aminoglycosides, and rifampycins are large families of antibiotics whose counterfeits are highly prevalent in the developing world. Cardiac glycosides, used for treating heart conditions, have been associated with substandard medication in developed countries and are often involved in medication errors due to their narrow therapeutic window and adverse drug interactions.
Glycans play diverse and crucial roles in several biological processes. Most plasma membrane and secretory proteins are glycosylated.
The presence and/or irregular concentrations of glycans can be a sign for various diseases such as multiple sclerosis, crohn's disease, autoimmune disease, colitis, inflammatory bowl disease, cancer, lysosomal storage disease and celiac. Some inherited and nongenetic diseases results of alterations of the glycan structures. Sensitive, convenient and precise glycan-sensing methods provide crucial tools for the early diagnosis of diseases and successful treatments of patients. Therefore, selective sugar detection is a challenging problem.
Although every sensor in an array may respond to a given chemical or mixture of chemicals differently, the pattern recognizer evaluates the responses and through predetermined, programmed, or learned patterns the pattern-recognizer compares the unique pattern or “fingerprints” of the measurements to stored patterns for known chemical species for identifying and quantifying of the species chemical.
Fluorescent or colorimetric molecular sensors have the ability to recognize various biologically compounds, specific and mixtures of chemicals and detect disease biomarkers. Fluorescent or colorimetric molecular sensors are among the most powerful analytical tools used in cell biology. Cell-permeable molecules that combine a receptor and a fluorophore allow one to sense specific ions or biomolecules in their native environments and to better understand their role in various cell signalling pathways.
A combinatorial fluorescent molecular sensor mimics the operation of optical cross-reactive sensor arrays (the so-called artificial “nose/tongues”). The sensor integrates different non-specific fluorescent receptors (e.g. boronic acid-dye conjugates) and utilizes photo-induced electron transfer (PET), internal charge transfer (ICT), and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) for generating distinguishable emission patterns for different carbohydrate-based drugs and their combinations.
Specifically, combinatorial sensing devices that, similar to small fluorescent molecules, could operate in a microscopic world might eventually be able to provide insight into the dynamics of bioanalyte combinations within cells, information that cannot be obtained from conventional fluorescent sensors.
Further, a combinatorial fluorescent molecular sensor can operate as a highly efficient molecular security/encoding system. The ability of a pattern-generating molecule to process diverse sets of chemical inputs, discriminate between their concentrations and form multivalent and kinetically-stable complexes, is a powerful tool for processing a wide range of chemical ‘passwords’ at different lengths. Such system results in unbreakable combination locks at a molecular scale.
Similar to the electronic devices, the molecular encoding system can respond to diverse input and authorize multiple password entries.
The subject Application is directed to molecular size array for use of differential sensing at the molecular-scale as well as within confined microscopic spaces such as cells. Specifically, sensing saccharides.